A blog post written by Thomas Caldwell titled "Notes on film: Double indemnity" gave me a lot more facts and insight about the film and the origins of film noir. Caldwell opens by informing us that Double indemnity was actually one of the first or even the first true film noir. I enjoyed getting to know a little about the origins of how film noir was inspired by the depression and the war, and how the dark images and thoughts were transpired by these events. Even some early traits of film noir are traced back to 1910 from German expressionist films, these film makers eventually came to the U.S when the Nazi's took over and shared these traits. The french actually were the first to recognize the trend in hollywood naming it "Film Noir" translating to "Dark film".
I mostly was interested in the comment he wrote to a viewer when asked why the Femme fatale character was very popular to women at this time. He replied stating that it showed strong empowerment to women because of how the "social norm" back in the early 90's were of Men being superior. But in the case of film noir stories, the Women seem to have more of an upper-hand. I remember the class discussing these topics of Rosie the Riveter and how women emerged to defining themselves more than just a housewife. All in all, It was nice to read about the roots of film noir and the reasons behind this film movement.
Hi Stacey, I like that piece of history about film noir that you just share with us, I'ts always good to know about the origin of things. No wonder why film noir is about darkness/evilness because it was inspired from the great depression that happened years ago. I also like how they come up with the idea of femme fatale, instead of going with the flow or sticking with the social norms, they went against it so they created a complete opposite of what a woman should be on that time. girl power lol good job!
ReplyDeleteI had a feeling that the femme fatale represented empoweremnt for women, since back in the day men were superior. I like that your article confirmed that for me. I bet it was exciting for the women to watch these films. they were probably sitting secretly imaging themselves as the femme fatale. Some probably when home and killed there husbands LOL or planned to.GIRL POWER! as stated by jerrica. I wonder if women started acting out more after these type of films were released,the murder rate went up im sure. Thanks for sharing this article it was very insightful and interesting.
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